Closing Down the Park

After the last guests leave the park on Labor Day, it’s time to “button down” the park for the winter.

We start by deflating all of the tubes. Some of them that are worn and faded are discarded while the rest are stored for 2011. We use more than 110 tubes at Jet Scream alone. That’s quite a lot of tubes to deflate and store. The big family raft tubes are heavy and must be stored inside our warehouse.

Then we begin to stack all of the beach and lounge chairs in the park. This prevents them from getting too dirty and makes room in the park for pressure washing and construction.

All of our umbrellas, rescue tubes and other supplies also get stored away for the winter. Life vests are taken down, inspected and stacked by color in the warehouse (we have more than 2,500 in the park).

Next comes the extreme cleaning. We pressure wash all of the trash cans, the carts we use to empty trash cans, and the pans we use to sweep. When everything is clean it gets stored for the winter.

Not to mention that all of these items must be inventoried as well. I have to start ordering supplies for 2011 during October and November since many of those items have a long lead time. It’s very time consuming, but has to be done.

The park is clean and put to bed for the winter. However, February will be here before you know it. Then we’ll begin getting ready to open for the 2011 season.

Is everyone as excited as I am to ride the new slide Vanish Point in 2011? Hope to see you next year.